It was a buffet breakfast at the hotel which had a section for making your own seafood rice-bowl. There was lots of choice but slim-pickings for the veggies.

Today saw us whizzing along on the train straight-across the middle of Japan, from west to east. It was still very snowy in places.

We arrived in Kurashiki which has the beautiful Bikan Historical Quarter. The overcast day only seemed to highlight that. It was crowded and this was off-season in early Feb, so be warned if you are going.

First stop was to Ohara Museum of Art. It was crowded but had a decent selection.

We then got to the good bit…mitarashi-dango, a particular favourite of mine, especially when grilled. These were really nice and I’d love one right now! They were from 旅のくすり箱.

We’d wanted to go to a fruit parlour – the region is famous for them (and denim but you can’t eat that) but they were all rammed. Instead, we just went to Yuurin-an which was way overhyped in my opinion – we had to queue for about 30 mins to get in. Their popular items are pudding (purin) or tamago-kake gohan (raw egg on rice). It was fine but I wouldn’t go again.

For dinner we went for Japanese-style curry in the arcade. Portions were big, it was popular with men and it definitely was not vegetarian-based. You could certainly find better places to eat, so make sure you do.

Kurashiki’s Bikan Historical Quarter was very pretty at night but nothing much is open apart from eateries. If you like the typical historical Japanese buildings but don’t like the crowds, you can’t go much wrong with Hagi – my little tip.

Day 5, back to the city with lots of people around. Inaka this wasn’t.
Emily